


Moon and Stars

by BarnesRogersVsTheWorld



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, F/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Flirts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 07:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17935196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarnesRogersVsTheWorld/pseuds/BarnesRogersVsTheWorld
Summary: Emotional support, paint, and bad puns shared after a difficult mission.





	Moon and Stars

It’s late.

A resolute lateness that edges dark into the corners of the room where you sit. That presses the hush of stillness into your ears and hangs heavy on your eyelids as you stare at the stretch of canvas before you.

Empty.

Stark white and intimidatingly naked. Full of possibilities that, despite your best efforts, your brain just can’t seem to realize.

It’s irritating, the nagging vexation that nothing feels inspirational or lovely or thought provoking at all. And that the activity meant to alleviate post mission stress has in effect become a source of restlessness itself. You’re so far in your thoughts over it, so deep into redefining the term _critical_ thinking, that you don’t register the door to the small studio open until someone else clears their throat.

Your head snaps up, gaze flitting past that square of white and landing onto two soft points of blue. Summer sky- Steve’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he offers you a gentle smile.

“Hey,” he speaks into the silence, mug clutched and hovering just beneath pouted lips. The longest pieces of his golden hair hang forward across his forehead, touching the tips of thick lashes that border a sleep deprived stare.

“Hey-“

He looks soft. Much more the man you’ve come to know in the quiet inbetweens. The anomaly that’s sly snark and carefully placed humor- quiet, interested laughter and genuine kindness. All wrapped in the most righteously good packaging.

Righteously good and on full display- a bare torsoed array of sculpted muscles spanning down, down, interrupted only by the navy fleece pants slung low on his hips.

_Inspiration_ , your mind teases as you divert your eyes upward again. Where it’s safe.

“It’s late,” he says, a pointed look at you once he scans the room. It shouldn’t matter, it isn’t like he himself has never spent the wee hours of morning here- in this nook nestled on the outskirts of the compound- his fingers pressed and smudged to the bends in charcoal. But his lips quirk as he watches you. As you answer-

“Or early,” with a slow, guarded smile. And, “Is this a welfare check?”

“I was just headed back from the commons.”

“ _Interesting_ ,” you hum, handle of your brush tapped in contemplation against your lip, “The commons that, along with your place, are on the complete opposite side of the building?”

Steve blinks. Watches as your brow lifts, stifling the smile it elicits as he hums back in a dubious manner identical to your own, “ _Interesting_ …”

“How’d you know I was here?”

He shrugs, “Job was tough today. You were quiet. I had a hunch. You okay?”

It’s genuine, his question. Void of playfulness and ripe with concern that softens those tiny barbs of tension pressed into your skin from an afternoon of close calls that will never feel normal.

He’d bled on you.

Not that that was the end all of work related trauma. But Steve had bled on you- cocooned you beneath him, beneath his shield. Dripped from a hairline graze that stained his golden locks pink as he’d shielded you from the hellfire that rained down around you both. As he’d blocked clouds of dust and ash from searing your lungs.

And he’d apologized for it.

When you were in the open and you could breathe again and the sun was still shining and the sky was still _blue_ \- Steve had apologized for that small thread of red that coursed your cheek like a river navigating the ash that clung to it.

You hadn’t known if he’d been joking. The absurdity of an apology over a much less tragic fate suffered because of him. Because of his awareness of you. His presence of mind that had potentially meant the difference between life and death.

You both seemed more aware of that fact after you’d thanked him. You’d ridden home together in silence.

He watches you now, concern painted into his features in a way you’d give anything to render onto the stretch of white before you. You smile at him, small but genuine and sweet as you nod.

“I’m all right.Thank you.”

They’re not enough, those two words. They weren’t then, and they aren’t now. Too little, too short, too small to express the gratitude you feel for the man willing to walk through fire for you.

For anyone.

But…for you.

He understands. In the silence that presses between you, Steve understands those words that mean so much more than they can say. That look that tells him you’d do the same for him. In a heartbeat. And the way his eyes soften at that, the way the corners of those pouty lips tip upward- it makes you wonder how his days are ever filled with anything other than constant professions of devotion.

“Okay,” he says, after that stretch of shared quiet, shifting off the door frame and straightening, “Don’t burn too much of the midnight oil, then.”

“I won’t.”

Another lingering pause. A hesitant stance that, despite his words, seems to indicate he isn’t quite ready to walk away. And maybe, you think as you watch him, his tired eyes, the fingers fidgeting against his cup- maybe he didn’t wander the building in the dead of night just to check up on you. Maybe- and he’d never admit to it- but maybe the unflappable Captain America needed someone to make sure he was okay, too.

You interrupt his final bid goodnight with, “Hey, Rogers-”

And, facing you again, he wears that small, unassumingly curious grin.

“It’s a bit late for a coffee fix, isn’t it?”

He blinks, eyes tipped to the mug in his hand. Back to you. His smile turns sly.

“Or early,” he draws, his tone coy- the exact impersonation of yours when he’d first said It’s late.

It makes you laugh. An appreciative bark into the silence that he seems pleased to elicit from you as you beckon him forward into the room.

“Since you won’t be sleeping anytime soon either, maybe you could help me?”

“I don’t paint,” he denies, but interest lights his expression as he leans against the low table stretched beside your chair. He places his mug of bitterly black coffee down beside him, lips twitching in amusement as he regards the tubes of acrylic you’ve painstakingly arranged into the shape of a sunburst.

“Part of your process?”

“Tell me what you like sketching most,” you ask, ignoring the gibe, “Your go to when you just want to get something down.”

“People,” he answers after a pause, “I like people.”

“People you know?”

“Sure.”

“Me?”

Another pause. A blink. And a sly, “I know you.”

“I’m taking that as yes.”

No confirmation, only a smile.

“It’s okay,” you say, “You don’t have to show me the journal you keep beneath your pillow filled with pictures of me,” he laughs at that, a bright yelp that stutters your heart just a little bit and makes you want to hear it again, “but reciprocity says I should get to paint you, too…”

Your eyes taunt his, lips mirroring the smile that stretches wider across his mouth now as he regards you. Worry lines retract from his expression, replaced by those forged in joy.

_Come on_ , you think, _play with me_ \- a challenging stare he holds so long that nerves crackle like electricity along your skin. Your eagerness to make him happy superseding any desire you have to brood.

Finally, he shifts, a gratuitous unfolding of arms he’s modestly crossed over his chest. He holds them out, grinning, a mimicry of arrogance- Okay then, go ahead.

_My Steve_.

Even though you scold yourself for it, you can’t help but turn the phrase over in your mind as you stand and cut your gaze down to the array of tubes on the table.

_My Steve_.

The one reserved to private moments just for you.

Maybe not just for you. But it feels like it. It feels like it, because that same desire you have to ease any of his discontent- you can sense that in him, too. Toward you. As he watches you carefully squeeze a few choice colors onto your palette. As brush sweeps through pigment.

He doesn’t expect it- that first swipe of carmine broadly stroked across his chest. And you hear it again, that startled but glorious laugh that sings your soul as he says-

“What are you doing?”

“Painting you.”

Your answer it matter of factly- an air of nonchalance as you continue that swing of bold color down and around, circling it into a hoop of crimson that shines stark against pale, muscled gold.

He squirms, leaning back further against the table, and-

“I’m gonna need you to hold still, Steve,” you say, casting challenging eyes upward, “You did agree, after all.”

“I think something was lost in translation-”

But pouted lips press together, concealing rapture as he stares. Azure points sparkling with delight and mirth and interest and something…

You break the contact, exchanging red for a snowy, titanium white- a smaller circle inside of the first. Then red again, inside of that.

“Bullseye,” Steve murmurs into the silence, the burn of his gaze still on you, “This target practice? You getting rid of me?”

“You really need to be more aware of your brand,” you mutter, cobalt swiped onto your brush and painted into the center of those rings. He laughs when he realizes it’s a recreation of his shield- even more so when, in lieu of a star, you ornament the center with a large heart.

“My official redesign,” you tell him, washing your brush again and toweling it off, “I’ve submitted it for Stark’s approval. Much more fitting for you.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because- if a _regular_ man can have a heart of gold- then yours must surely be made of vibranium.”

Steve tears his eyes from the symbol emblazoned across his chest. A long look at you as he seems to think his words through. But he only treads, “Hardy-har.”

And you’re already mixing again. Already swiping another circle onto his shoulder.

“There’s more?” He asks.

“Of course. This is a study.”

Ultramarine. Sap green. Sienna. Dusted with fan brush sweeps of white.

“Earth,” he says.

“Of which you’re so determined to carry the weight around all by your lonesome-”

He shrugs. A shoulder bob beneath you and an almost cheeky, “Doesn’t feel so heavy, now.”

“Cute,” you murmur, repressing a smile, “What image do you think could represent someone who thinks they’re actually funny?”

Another circle, beneath the world, onto his bicep before he can even answer.

“You have a theme,” he says.

“Yeah. I like it when you’re a- _round_.”

“I’m the one who thinks they’re actually funny?”

“It was clever word play.”

Payne’s gray. Ultramarine. White.

“It was the worst pun I’ve ever heard-”

Swirled and swathed beneath shaking shoulders.

“It was god awful-”

Dappled and spotted with light.

“So bad-”

“Stop laughing,” you scold, unable to hide your own as you finish, “You’re ruining my moon-”

“Is it the moon?”

You swat at him, “Mm. Arguably most like you out of all of these.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Sure. Lighting all our paths in the dark and such-”

He quirks a skeptical brow, “Not your best.”

You chuckle, righting yourself from the hunch over his arm and wiping your brush, “Okay. Well- I guess a lot of people say you make them do crazy things. Others speculate you’re just full of cheese-”

“What do you say?” Tone waggish, tinged with that mysterious something.

You meet his eyes, narrowing your own mischievously, “I say no man has _ever_ walked over you-”

A bark of laughter so loud it startles him onto his feet. Shaking his head, his aversion to conspiracy on full display as he says, “Don’t you dare-”

You don’t know how long it lasts, your coupled laughter chasing darkness from the corners of the room, but Steve finally settles, one hand clutched to the heart shield on his chest as he says to you-

“My turn.”

And, “No. You don’t paint, remember?”

“I’m a quick learner.”

He gestures for you to take the spot on the table, eyes roaming the paint tubes you scattered from their previous design. Dubiously, you do. Watching carefully as he selects an array of pinks and purples. Rich blues. The tiniest dot of white. And black. A dense and deep Mars black.

He looks at you. Down again, to the palette of paint. Up again at you. To the stretch of shoulder bared by the oversized sweatshirt you practically live in.

“Be nice to me,” you warn.

A gentle smile, “Always.”

You’re startled when, instead of the tickle of a brush against your skin, it’s the press of Steve’s warm, calloused fingertips. His eyes slide briefly to yours upon the initial flinch, tongue pressed between his lips in concentration. He flicks it against them, pushes out a breathy chuckle at your nervousness that skitters down, through, and into your bones as his fingers resume the sweeping of wide, nebulous swirls across your skin.

It’s different here. From this side of it all. Rather than the painter, the paintee. No busy hands to occupy the thoughts of proximity. To distract from the warm breath that caresses against you. The familiar scent of pine that invades your senses, clouding your brain as you involuntarily shift forward. 

Closer.

Quite suddenly you don’t even want to swallow. To breathe too loudly for fear of alerting him to whatever something it is that stirs inside you. That seems to grow in restlessness at his touch. Fingers smooth, across your shoulder- over and along your collarbone, swirling midnight blues and inky blacks toward your throat.

Surely, he’ll soon be able to feel the pounding pulse of your frantic heart.

“Am I a vortex?” you tease into the silence, tone not as bold as you’d hoped.

Steve’s answer is a simple, “No.”

Magenta. Quin violet. Dappled along the blues, touching your throat-

“A black hole?” You whisper, “The plague?”

A quirk of his lips, “Shhh-”

It’s more of a reprimand at self deprecation than a shushing. But you fall silent anyway as he finally pulls back and, selecting the tiniest of accent brushes, begins to freckle that swirl of colors in white.

Too long. Too arduous, your task in breath control. And you’re so relieved when he steps back, sets the brush aside and states, proudly, “The stars.”

You admire what you can of it. The little galaxy that spans over your skin.

It’s silly. The way you feel about it is silly. A fingerpainting, for crying out loud, born simply out of the desire to make each other smile. But you can’t help but think it’s pretty. And that, from Steve, it’s special.

But, “Not the sun?” grinning over that surge of emotion as you look at him, “I don’t light up your life? I don’t make people sweat? I’m disappointed in your lack of creative word play-”

“Hang on-” he says, holding a hand up in defense, mouth slanting into a crooked grin, “I thought about that. And I’ve got something.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I didn’t just arbitrarily choose the stars,” he says, “I’m tying this all together.”

“Are you?”

“Oh yeah. It’s going to blow you away.”

You laugh, “Let’s hear it, then.”

He looks at you. Azure dotted with that sweet something. He takes a breath, releases it. Opens his mouth and closes it again with a contemplative hum. Finally, he shakes his head.

“What?”

“Nevermind,” he says.

And, “No-”

“It’s not…”

“Not what? Not clever? Not funny? Not appropriate,” his eyes shift again to you, “Well now you _have_ to say it-”

But you realize, as you hold his stare, that his eyes are no longer playful. That they are suddenly void of mirth. Replaced by a seriousness that prickles goosebumps along your skin and-

“ _Say it_ -” a whispered urge.

Steve swallows, murmuring into the tail end of a sigh, “For my part I know nothing with any certainty. But the sight of the stars makes me dream…”

And, “Oh.”

He blinks. Draws a breath. His tongue flicks across his lower lip, the corner of his mouth twitching ever so slightly, “That was, uh- that was Van Gogh-”

“I know who said it.”

Eyes wide. Hearts pounding.

Something. Something.

_Something_.

“Oh,” he says, it’s a whisper, “Well. Maybe it’s not funny like yours. Maybe I was just thinking that if you made me the moon, I’d make you the-”

“-stars.”

“Yeah.”

“Steve?”

“Hm?”

“Are you going to kiss me?”

“Is that okay?”

You don’t have to answer. Don’t have to do anything but lean forward to intercept those lips- full and pouted and parted slightly in anticipation of slanting against your own.

They’re impossibly soft. Impossibly soft and fitted as easily against you as if they were meant to. As if they were made to.

He steps between your knees, drawing you closer as palms slide up and over your cheeks.

He cradles you there, mouth whispered against your own. Slowly- painfully slow, his tongue traces the curves of your lips, sparking fire beneath your skin, threatening to engulf you as you reach out to nothing. No t-shirt to grab. No traction. Nothing but the contours of muscle hardened skin hot with desire beneath your fingertips. You grip him at his waist, nails lightly pressed to the edges of his back as his own fingers slide back and through your hair. As you open your mouth to him.

His tongue slides past your lips, over your own. A mix of wintergreen and deliciously bittered coffee. Your nails press harder into his skin. Tug him closer. Devour him more.

A sensuous drag of his teeth along your lower lip, and then his mouth is on your chin. Your jaw. The pulse point at your throat. Lips, teeth, tongue, stubble. He utilizes them all against you, a skilled and surely practiced combination that steals the breath from your lungs in a gasp shaped like his name-

“ _Steve_ -”

Mouth to mouth again. Desperate and scorching with messy intensity as you press together, eager for more.

Your hands slip. Down to the waistband of his pants as his fall simultaneously, fisting into the hem of your sweatshirt. Pushing up, pulling a sweet titter from the back of your throat. Suddenly he pauses, severing the kiss with a gasp.

“Let me take you out,” he breathes, hands releasing your sweatshirt and slipping around to your back. His forehead presses against your own. There’s paint flecked in his stubble.

A dazed, “Now?”

He laughs. Airy and breathless against your lips as his chest rises and falls in rapid succession, slowing only with the measured breaths he takes to calm himself.

“No,” he answers, mouth tipped in a smile, “I’ve had a long time to think about this. Kissing you-” your eyes flash, and he chuckles again, the most featherlight touch of his lips to yours, “A long time,” he repeats, answering the unspoken question, “But I want to take you out. I want to buy you flowers. Hold your doors. Take you to dinner. And,” he licks his lips, nervous, “and I’m no good at it. But I want to take you dancing. I just. I want to do it right. Me and you. Proper.”

Hands slide over your back as he waits, eyes wide, lips swollen. Forehead touched against yours.

And, “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” It’s happy. So heart wrenchingly happy and similar in tone to your own-

“Yeah.”

Silence. Dotted only with infatuated breaths and besotted smiles. Steve’s the first to break it-

“Just know, though,” he says, holding you in that embrace, as he raises his brows, teasing, “that with so many years on you- I should probably act fast.”

It startles a laugh from you. So pretty, he thinks, and sweet on your lips.

“Oh,” you answer, “Cool. So we’ll move in together next week?”

“Hm,” he grins, delighted you’ve played along, “I’m a traditionalist. We’d need to get married, first.”

“So a proposal by the weekend? I’ll have to prepare.”

“Great. It’s going to be an intensely public ordeal.”

“Amazing.”

“We can get a dog.”

“He’ll be ringbearer.”

“Perfect.”

“Like you-”

He stops at that. Rendered speechless by those words. He’s not perfect. Not at all. Not by a long shot. But- coming from you…

Mouths touch once more, opening to one another, nearly lost again to the intensity of desire.

But again, Steve pulls away. Licks his lips. Disregards all vulnerability as he says-

“I like you. A lot.”

You smile, reaching up to swipe a thumb across the flecks of paint on his lip, “Which is why you’re leaving?”

He kisses that thumb, one more lingering look before he steps out from between your legs, “Which is why I’m leaving,” he confirms.

“Well,” you say, “thank you for the inspiration, then. I guess.”

His hand slips through his hair, he flashes your favorite crooked grin, “Anytime.”

And, “Good night, Steve.”

You’re not entirely convinced he’ll go. Not completely certain that he won’t just keep standing there. Moony eyed and grinning until the sun comes up. You wouldn’t mind. Not a bit.

Finally, he wrenches his eyes from your own, turning away and slipping through the door in haste before he can change his mind. His answer is distant, far away already, as if he’s running, a yearning and anticipatory bid called over his shoulder, 

“Good night.”


End file.
